


Talking to Minerva

by akhlys



Category: Taken (TV 2002)
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Slow Burn, vague sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-15
Updated: 2008-09-15
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:32:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5861734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akhlys/pseuds/akhlys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've never once said "I love you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talking to Minerva

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old, old piece (circa 2008) -- but it explains the origins of a nickname to be used in my 1993 series, so here we are.
> 
> Reconciling Mary's shock at saying "I love you" with the story and emotion of these two idiots. <3
> 
>  _Addicted_ by Hotel Persona is great accompaniment!
> 
> And: 'merda' = 'shit'; 'te amo' = "I love you."

He used to make a habit of pretending to need the bathroom.

"Be right back, Eric, that scotch is whipping right through me." Eric always laughed as if he actually felt it; Chet would place his glass on the table and raise his eyebrows to indicate the joke. And his heart would pound out dozens of extra beats as he silently headed for the hall.  
  
Step by step, one foot following the other, his head swimming slightly from the alcohol, Chet knows what's waiting for him at the end of the corridor: a door slightly, expectantly, ajar. All the lights off. Julie asleep in the master bedroom; Eric distracted by the alcohol and the difficulty of life itself. No pretensions: they all treated him like family -- the family you didn't really want around, but were willing to put up with if it was worthwhile. Wakeman had no illusions about the time he spent with the Crawfords.

Of course, he wasn't one to waste time -- there were reasons he himself put up with Julie's abruptness, Eric's jealous disdain.  
  
If he was a fictional character, he would slide in beside the sleeping girl at the end of the hall and cover his mouth with her hand. If he was one of Nabokov's, this girl's innocence wouldn't have made it to her tenth birthday. Instead, he pauses at the threshold, as he always does, to listen to her breathe. She's awake, and this stirs no surprise -- she never falls asleep before learning another word of their secret language.  
  
His knuckles tap the door softly. The little girl whispers, "Come in!" and can't hide the thrill in her tone; she sits up immediately, the blankets tumbling off skinny limbs. His eyes adjust to the dark by focusing on a grin revealing new adult teeth.  
  
"Hey there, Miss Crawford," he walks inside the room, the smell of cinnamon and cheap candy permeating. The little girl has cleared a spot on the bed beside her, and all he sees is tangled hair and brilliant eyes as the mattress sinks under his weight. "And how's my little stella this evening?"  
  
Mary laughs. "Good."  
  
"Remember what stella means?" he asks, daring to press his knee against hers.  
  
"Star," she replies instantly.  
  
"Perfect!" He beams, and she floods with pride. Her eyes tear into his, and he holds her gaze. "School's going well?" Those shiny new teeth chew on a lower lip. Silence. "Well?"  
  
"It's fine," she looks at her hands. "I just get bored, and Miss Alison doesn't like when I try new things."  
  
Chet suppresses a delighted grin. He wants nothing more than for this little star to piss people off with her initiative. "What kinds of new things?"  
  
She clears her throat. "Well, we're writing poems in Language Arts," her eyes dart back to him, "And I wrote mine without a rhyme scheme." Barely stumbling over the words -- her confidence always increases tenfold in the presence of this man. "And Miss Alison kept me after class to go over the rules of the assignment. She said I needed 'better direction'," Mary couples this with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. Her teeth close on her lip again. "But I liked my poem the way it was, so I told her I wasn't going to change it -- " Chet laughs " -- and I got detention."  
  
He pauses, debating how to proceed, then reaches over and rests his hand on her knee, squeezing softly. Those eyes burn. "You know, sometimes following rules isn't the best thing to do," he tells her (Eric would kill him). "If you do what you know is right, a lot of the time it turns out better than if you'd listened to someone who doesn't always know what they're talking about." He says the last few words in a voice, and Mary giggles.  
  
"Can I show you my poem next time?" she asks, lacing her fingers into his.  
  
He closes his hand around hers. "Of course." And he's perfectly aware that this is Eden. He could spend the rest of his life sitting fully-clothed on this bed, holding the hand of a ten-year-old girl who breaks the rules and doesn't apologize. But time exists here, and she's no Eve. "Okay, stella, time for bed. I gotta get back to your dad." The wrinkle of her nose is instinctive, and Chet wonders how deeply her hatred goes, wonders what would happen if he stole her away, wonders -- with a hint of pride -- if he's somehow pulled her from something very dark, at least for now.  
  
"Okay," she whines, drawing out the "y", getting under the covers as Chet stands up. Her head rests on the pillow and she looks up at him, waiting half-impatiently.  
  
He leans down, his long body folding to touch his lips to the cool forehead, hand resting on her right shoulder. His lips stick and she sighs softly. "Te amo, Maria," he murmurs in her ear.  
  
"Te amo," she replies with a sleepy giggle. He waits until those eyes slip shut and returns to Eric, knees weak.  
  
  
  
  
Thirteen years seem to take forever, every conversation carefully omitting all Latin phrases. These conversations necessarily decrease in number as her skinny limbs gain all the right weight, her teeth are braced and reset, her eyes dusted with makeup and teenage cynicism. The risks they run are silent, imagined, nothing anyone would find the least bit offensive. She forgets all her nighttime language lessons but one.  
  
And then she is two months past twenty-three, and he's been wondering for five years if his entire life is one miserable delusion. He's almost convinced himself that all that matters is his work, and he calls it  _my baby_ to anyone sharing his bed. Her soft dialect slowly retreats to the back of his mind, allowing him rare moments of peace. These moments always end, and when they do he always hisses "Merda" in their secret language.  
  
When they finally drink enough to break their inhibitions, though, his lips are nowhere near her forehead. The little girl has been replaced with an electric queen, a live wire that has long awaited its conductor. As he crushes her body against his and moves inside her, a crescendo -- she stops breathing.  
  
They blow up stars together.  
  
The second time is harder, because they have a taste for it now, and there is nothing so dangerous as the culmination of fifteen wasted years. He rips her open and she moans, her nails tearing up his back, eyes shining brilliantly into his. The blonde is gone from his hair, now; there are soft reddish strands in her eyes as he breathes her air. That blonde man without glasses woke her up in every way: intellectual, spiritual, physical. The man into whose ear she is alternately sobbing and screaming is one and the same, but completely different, because he is hers. There was a moment, when their arms circled unfamiliar bodies and their lips met for the first time -- she felt him soften into her. His heart, superseded by mind and morals, never had a chance; finally, with a sigh, it reached out and something in him turned.  
  
"Merda," he grinned as she pulled away with bright bedroom eyes.  
  
And now, he is pushing hard, and his little stella screams and they can't stop. Not anymore. Eventually any pretense of discussion dissipates, and until the sun rises they are skin and sweat and tangled limbs.  
  
This night will create a pattern that will be followed systematically for the next nine years. They aren't much for routine, these two, but this lasts. Sometimes it's black, sometimes it's fire, sometimes it's nothing archetypal at all except two people who have never felt so much.  
  
When they are together, meaningful words aren't always part of the equation. It can take awhile for them to speak, Chet falling onto his back, Mary's legs split over and around him, her head safely under his chin, her eyes closed as his fingers lightly trace numbers on her skin. During the day, sun gleams through the window, highlighting the red in their hair, the blue in their eyes.  
  
As vocabulary slowly returns to sweat-soaked brains, words escape alongside soft movements. They talk about work, about science, about coincident and dissident passions, about the world, about politics, about art, about literature, about the future and how they can change it. This usually leads to more violent movements, and when they are finally, finally exhausted, they continue to talk. His arm will rest around her shoulders, her palm will lay flat on his chest, and they will grin and laugh and argue and snap, and then Chet will say, offhand, in their secret language:  
  
"Te amo, Maria."  
  
And Mary will reply, without his breezy certainty of the language but with absolute confidence in the words, "Te amo, Chet."  
  
His hands will tangle in her hair and his little stella will stretch into him. Briefly, time will stop, and English will die, leaving in its place countless skin cells burning into stars.


End file.
